Free Republic

(Reuters) - A Tunisian man suspected of being involved with the September 11 attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya has refused to be interviewed by FBI investigators, his lawyer said on Monday. Ali Ani al-Harzi, jailed and under investigation in Tunisia over the attack having been deported from Turkey, said he would not see the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents alone, Anouar Aouled told Reuters. Harzi was one of two Tunisians named in October by the Daily Beast website as having been detained in Turkey over the attacks in Benghazi in which Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to...

Once again an illusion of a moderate Islam is unmosqued. And it is ugly. Why do civilized men tolerate this barbarity? Why do civilized men walk on eggshells for fear of insulting savages, as if they had human sensibilities? They don't, and we'd be wise to buck up and fight this gruesome fight. We will have to. Instead, the media quislings allow Islamic supremacists and stealth jihadists to smear, defame and libel those who challlenge jihad and dare to speak the truth about the most radical and extreme ideology on the face of the earth. To what end? Tunisians greet...

Tunisian voters stood in long queues on Sunday, seizing the opportunity to take part in the first election of the “Arab Spring” that was expected to hand the biggest share of power to an Islamist party. ... Sunday’s vote is for an assembly that will draft a new constitution to replace the one Ben Ali manipulated to entrench his power. It will also appoint an interim government and set elections for a new president and parliament. Islamist leader Ghannouchi, who spent 22 years in exile in Britain, has associated his party with the moderate Islamism of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip...

On 9 November, a 38-year old Belgian named Muriel, blew herself to pieces in Baghdad near a group of Iraqi policemen, killing five other people. The woman had converted to Islam after marrying a Belgian of Moroccon origin. Her husband was shot down by American troops. The American authorities informed the Belgian authorities of the woman’s identity a few weeks ago, but Brussels kept it secret. Yesterday evening the Franco-Luxemburgian network RTL announced the news. Last night, the Belgian police arrested 14 people. Nine of them are Belgians, mostly of foreign origin, three are Moroccans and two are Tunisians. They...

The Hunt for American al Qaeda The United States is turning up the heat in the hunt for the California boy turned al Qaeda operative, Adam Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. If caught and convicted, Gadahn could face the death penalty. The State Department along with the Department of Diplomatic Security announced the beginning of a publicity campaign in Afghanistan urging locals to provide any information on Gadahn's whereabouts, with a reward if the information leads to his capture. Radio advertisements with information concerning the $1 million reward have...

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Gangs of rioters set fire to cars and garbage trucks in northern Copenhagen on Friday, the sixth night of rioting and vandalism that has spread from the capital to other Danish cities, police said on Saturday.Five youths were arrested in the capital on Friday after 28 cars and 35 garbage trucks were burned, Copenhagen police duty officer Jakob Kristensen told Reuters. Danish media said arrests in other towns brought to 29 the number of people police were holding. Scores of cars and several schools have been vandalized or burned in the past week. Police could give no...

A Europe-wide sweep disrupted an Islamic cell that was recruiting potential suicide bombers for attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, Italian police said, announcing the arrests of 20 terror suspects. Police said the suspects, mostly Tunisians, were arrested across Europe as part of the sweep against a cell based in the northern Italian region of Lombardy. Police said they found al-Qaida manuals for making explosives, detonation devices and poisons, as well as instructions on guerrilla techniques.

Italian police have arrested at least 10 suspected Islamist militants who are believed to be linked to the bombings that rocked Algiers in April. The suspects, held in Milan, allegedly provided logistical and financial support for the militants in Algeria. Two blasts killed at least 30 people and injured 160 in Algiers. A group called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat said it carried out the attacks. It later changed its name to al-Qaeda in the Maghreb. Police said the suspects were also believed to be linked to Islamist activities in Tunisia in January. The Milan suspects are...

SARAJEVO -- At least three Bosnian citizens are on the UN list of individuals aiding the al-Qaeda terrorist network. Dragan Lukac, assistant director of the Bosnian state security agency, said in an interview with the daily Nezavisne Novine that three Tunisians, who are on the UN terrorist list, were granted Bosnian citizenship after the country's 1992-1995 civil war. "It's difficult to say where they are at the moment, but we can say with great certainty that they are not in Bosnia and don't use Bosnian passports," Lukac said. He named the three Tunisians as Mahrez ben Mahmud ben Sashi al...

ARIS, Oct. 22 - France's antiterrorist police on Friday identified a young Frenchman killed fighting the United States in Iraq, the first confirmed case of what is believed to be a growing stream of Muslims heading from Europe to fight what they regard as a new holy war. Redouane el-Hakim, 19, the son of Tunisian immigrants, died during an American bombardment of insurgents in Falluja on July 17, according to an intelligence official close to the case. Intelligence officials fear that for a new generation of disaffected European Muslims, Iraq could become what Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya were for European...

Italian police say they have broken up a suspected al-Qaida terrorist cell that was reportedly planning attacks against targets in Europe. Italian police, working with the American FBI and British police, arrested four Tunisians during the past week. A fifth Tunisian, said to be part of the same cell, has been detained by authorities in Malta, and a sixth suspect is still being sought. The four men arrested in Italy were charged with conspiracy to commit terrorist acts, trafficking of forged documents, and facilitating illegal immigration. The group's suspected leader, a man known by the name "Hamsa the Libyan", was...

Investigators talk of a 'new generation' who adopted radical views in Europe BRUSSELS After 12 months of intensive investigations into terrorist networks in Europe, the police are increasingly focusing on the North African diaspora as a recruitment pool for terrorist groups. Young men from Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria have been involved in a series of incidents in the last year, among them alleged plots to attack the U.S. embassies in Paris and Rome and the deadly bombing of a synagogue in Tunisia in April. That members of the North African diaspora are involved in terrorism in Europe is nothing new....